If it's not the new year where you are, wishing you a good one in advance. If it is, may this one be excellent to you.
I'll get up a retrospective of the year's gaming if I have some time tomorrow.
Tuesday, December 31, 2019
Monday, December 30, 2019
Draugr Details
Yesterday in our Felltower campaign the PCs took their biggest step towards defeating the draugr since their first one back in 2013.
Session 21, Felltower 12 - Dust of the Dead
The PCs have tried to cheap a victory a few times here, but inevitably this failed because it's not a setup conducive to cheaping. The draugr aren't mindless, they're not programmed, and they're not restricted to their tomb area even if they clearly are reluctant to leave it.
Also, they're very tough - they aren't stock-standard draugr from DFM1. They're the picked elite bodyguard of Baron Sterick the Red, who clearly spent all of his time, effort, and money on his gear and those of his bodyguards and little on anything else. They're well equipped and chosen men from the veterans of Sterick's experienced forces.
On top of that, the PCs have been reluctant to use the area-effect attacks most conducive to dealing with desiccated undead - fire - because it's likely to reduce the value of the loot.
The Loot
The draugr have a fair amount of loot by themselves - suits of mail (old-school Basic Set mail, sadly, not incredible valuable DFRPG mail), oversized axes, swords, and spears, plus golden necklaces. 33 gold necklaces alone will be a useful bit of loot.
One of the draugr, however, is more valuable. Long ago a Lord Venick offered a reward that's probably above-market for the grave goods of his ancestor.
That's caused the PCs to start thinking it's possible to sell these goods at above market. The PCs - led by Wyatt - plan to shop around the grave goods of the draugr, looking for other nobles who may be descended from the bodyguards. They figure they'd give a better price for their arms, armor, and treasures than the open market. I'm going to allow that, but it will mean:
- only the loot sold immediately counts for XP for loot thresholds;
- finding the nobles will take time, Research, general investigation, and reaction rolls - some of this will cost money;
- someone will need to be in charge of the stuff and of spending between-session time doing the finding and selling (which means less chances for study, new spells, new skills, etc.);
- dribs and drabs of loot over time.
So we'll see if they do that after all. It's an interesting and clever way to maximize the value of their loot, but it will come with a loss of convenience.
There was some joking about selling the thrown spears as antiques, but that would take a good Merchant or Fast-Talk roll, and it would just be color for why they got a higher price. People don't really collect antiques in this game.
Say My Name
The draugr cardboard figures that Emily Smirle made for me are great. I printed out 33 of them and gave them names and numbers, printed right on the counter. The names help. The players didn't "shoot at that guy" or "attack number 17" they "shot at Sven" or "attacked Ragner." It added a lot to the combat, even though it's not clear how anyone would actually know the names. But named foes are interesting.
You can see them in the shots below.
The Taunts
The PCs have amusingly tried taunting the draugr, on the assumption that they may be berserkers and will lose cohesion and attack if taunted.
It hasn't really worked.
First off, almost no one has the appropriate skills, and the ones that do lack significant skill levels in them.
Second, their taunts haven't really hit the mark. "Sterick is dead." Okay, prove that. Stuff that boils down to "fight like a man!" isn't really impressing guys who regard how they are specifically fighting as fighting like men. Especially, as is the case 100% of the time with PCs, the draugr are facing a mixed bag of opponents lavished soup-to-nuts with magic. It takes no brains to figure out the glowing shimmer in front of someone that deflects blows is Shield, the guys moving double-time have Great Haste, guys in heavy armor floating like butterflies and hacking through mail like it's yarnmail might have Might on them, etc. And the PCs won't hesitate to demand a "fair" fight and then define "fair" as whatever helps them this particular moment. You know, one-on-one until that's not working, to your death but not ours, if we win you give up everything but if we lose it's fair to change the deal. Not a lot of instances of Code of Honor in the group. So it's unclear why that seems like it would be a good taunt. It's been established by actual play in my game that adventurers are untrustworthy greedy murders and it takes a bit to convince people otherwise.
Also, these guys are northern seafaring barbarian types like Hjalmarr was - and come from a culture where taunting is an art. So it'll be hard to impress them with some truly basic taunts like, "You suck!" or "Your boss is dead!"
Finally, the taunts and goads about how they failed their job and their lord is dead because of it might hit home . . . if anyone had any proof of it. Sterick's armor, his head, his weapons, his grave goods . . . none of it. Hayden was there, but he's the only bona fide Slayer of Sterick in the group at the moment. The words of PCs who just showed up and heard this happened, even if the player was there when it did, inevitably ring hollow.
Coordination
The draugr exhibited coordinated tactics. The players knew that would happen, but how would they coordinate?
They heard a few shouted commands, but they didn't know from whom (outside of the light radius) and they didn't always hear commands before the draugr took action.
"Maybe they're a hive mind," suggested Astrid's player.
"Maybe they're all just talking around their own table amongst themselves and you guys can't hear their discussions, just like you guys," suggested me.
The draugr did give commands, but honestly, sometimes it's an eye-roll moment when the players take 5 minutes to resolve a one-second action after everyone coordinates their plans and actions . . . but then they think something is fishy when the enemy manages coordination without giving away how they do it.
Tactics
The draugr carefully formed ranks, threw spears, broke ranks to allow rear ranks through, and otherwise supported themselves. They used a tight line but spaced the lines to make Area and Explosive Missile spells much less effective.
Their ability to do this springs from their nature - the elite bodyguard of Baron Sterick the Red - which gives them solid Tactics scores.
But it's also something that I personally worked on. I play and have played a lot of wargames. I'm no tactical expert but I don't suck. A good chunk of that is spending time thinking about tactics and what would work or not work.
Even tactical axioms are situational. Yes, you want to keep a solid line most of the time . . . but sometimes a solid line won't help and might hinder you. It's helpful to force your foes into a bottleneck . . . but not so tight of one you can't leverage your own abilities due to lack of fighting space or in such a way as you can't force battle when you need to. The tactical defense is generally better but sometimes you can't find a way to fight on the tactical defense or make someone walk into your trap. Knowing what to do takes actual real-world study and thought. Not everyone has the time or interest, but it's worth it if you also want to play a game where those decisions will matter.
Session 21, Felltower 12 - Dust of the Dead
The PCs have tried to cheap a victory a few times here, but inevitably this failed because it's not a setup conducive to cheaping. The draugr aren't mindless, they're not programmed, and they're not restricted to their tomb area even if they clearly are reluctant to leave it.
Also, they're very tough - they aren't stock-standard draugr from DFM1. They're the picked elite bodyguard of Baron Sterick the Red, who clearly spent all of his time, effort, and money on his gear and those of his bodyguards and little on anything else. They're well equipped and chosen men from the veterans of Sterick's experienced forces.
On top of that, the PCs have been reluctant to use the area-effect attacks most conducive to dealing with desiccated undead - fire - because it's likely to reduce the value of the loot.
The Loot
The draugr have a fair amount of loot by themselves - suits of mail (old-school Basic Set mail, sadly, not incredible valuable DFRPG mail), oversized axes, swords, and spears, plus golden necklaces. 33 gold necklaces alone will be a useful bit of loot.
One of the draugr, however, is more valuable. Long ago a Lord Venick offered a reward that's probably above-market for the grave goods of his ancestor.
That's caused the PCs to start thinking it's possible to sell these goods at above market. The PCs - led by Wyatt - plan to shop around the grave goods of the draugr, looking for other nobles who may be descended from the bodyguards. They figure they'd give a better price for their arms, armor, and treasures than the open market. I'm going to allow that, but it will mean:
- only the loot sold immediately counts for XP for loot thresholds;
- finding the nobles will take time, Research, general investigation, and reaction rolls - some of this will cost money;
- someone will need to be in charge of the stuff and of spending between-session time doing the finding and selling (which means less chances for study, new spells, new skills, etc.);
- dribs and drabs of loot over time.
So we'll see if they do that after all. It's an interesting and clever way to maximize the value of their loot, but it will come with a loss of convenience.
There was some joking about selling the thrown spears as antiques, but that would take a good Merchant or Fast-Talk roll, and it would just be color for why they got a higher price. People don't really collect antiques in this game.
Say My Name
The draugr cardboard figures that Emily Smirle made for me are great. I printed out 33 of them and gave them names and numbers, printed right on the counter. The names help. The players didn't "shoot at that guy" or "attack number 17" they "shot at Sven" or "attacked Ragner." It added a lot to the combat, even though it's not clear how anyone would actually know the names. But named foes are interesting.
You can see them in the shots below.
The Taunts
The PCs have amusingly tried taunting the draugr, on the assumption that they may be berserkers and will lose cohesion and attack if taunted.
It hasn't really worked.
First off, almost no one has the appropriate skills, and the ones that do lack significant skill levels in them.
Second, their taunts haven't really hit the mark. "Sterick is dead." Okay, prove that. Stuff that boils down to "fight like a man!" isn't really impressing guys who regard how they are specifically fighting as fighting like men. Especially, as is the case 100% of the time with PCs, the draugr are facing a mixed bag of opponents lavished soup-to-nuts with magic. It takes no brains to figure out the glowing shimmer in front of someone that deflects blows is Shield, the guys moving double-time have Great Haste, guys in heavy armor floating like butterflies and hacking through mail like it's yarnmail might have Might on them, etc. And the PCs won't hesitate to demand a "fair" fight and then define "fair" as whatever helps them this particular moment. You know, one-on-one until that's not working, to your death but not ours, if we win you give up everything but if we lose it's fair to change the deal. Not a lot of instances of Code of Honor in the group. So it's unclear why that seems like it would be a good taunt. It's been established by actual play in my game that adventurers are untrustworthy greedy murders and it takes a bit to convince people otherwise.
Also, these guys are northern seafaring barbarian types like Hjalmarr was - and come from a culture where taunting is an art. So it'll be hard to impress them with some truly basic taunts like, "You suck!" or "Your boss is dead!"
Finally, the taunts and goads about how they failed their job and their lord is dead because of it might hit home . . . if anyone had any proof of it. Sterick's armor, his head, his weapons, his grave goods . . . none of it. Hayden was there, but he's the only bona fide Slayer of Sterick in the group at the moment. The words of PCs who just showed up and heard this happened, even if the player was there when it did, inevitably ring hollow.
Coordination
The draugr exhibited coordinated tactics. The players knew that would happen, but how would they coordinate?
They heard a few shouted commands, but they didn't know from whom (outside of the light radius) and they didn't always hear commands before the draugr took action.
"Maybe they're a hive mind," suggested Astrid's player.
"Maybe they're all just talking around their own table amongst themselves and you guys can't hear their discussions, just like you guys," suggested me.
The draugr did give commands, but honestly, sometimes it's an eye-roll moment when the players take 5 minutes to resolve a one-second action after everyone coordinates their plans and actions . . . but then they think something is fishy when the enemy manages coordination without giving away how they do it.
Tactics
The draugr carefully formed ranks, threw spears, broke ranks to allow rear ranks through, and otherwise supported themselves. They used a tight line but spaced the lines to make Area and Explosive Missile spells much less effective.
Their ability to do this springs from their nature - the elite bodyguard of Baron Sterick the Red - which gives them solid Tactics scores.
But it's also something that I personally worked on. I play and have played a lot of wargames. I'm no tactical expert but I don't suck. A good chunk of that is spending time thinking about tactics and what would work or not work.
Even tactical axioms are situational. Yes, you want to keep a solid line most of the time . . . but sometimes a solid line won't help and might hinder you. It's helpful to force your foes into a bottleneck . . . but not so tight of one you can't leverage your own abilities due to lack of fighting space or in such a way as you can't force battle when you need to. The tactical defense is generally better but sometimes you can't find a way to fight on the tactical defense or make someone walk into your trap. Knowing what to do takes actual real-world study and thought. Not everyone has the time or interest, but it's worth it if you also want to play a game where those decisions will matter.
Sunday, December 29, 2019
GURPS DF Session 124, Felltower 96 - Draugr I
Date: Sunday, December 29th, 2019
Weather: Moderately cold, rainy.
Characters:
Aldwyn Hale, human knight (278 points)
Astrid Cook, human barbarian (250 points)
Crogar the Lucky, human barbarian (268 points)
Gerald Tarrant, human necromancer (370 points)
5 Skeletons (~35 points)
Hayden the Ebon Page, human knight (307 points)
Hernando Velazquez, human knight (250 points)
Ulf Sigurdson, human cleric (285 points)
Wyatt Sorrell, human swashbuckler (286 points)
The group gathered in Stericksburg, and pooled their rumors and stocked up on magical goods (or took delivery of orders.) Aldwyn brought along Astrid, a scythe-and-harpoon armed and short barbarian warrior who was friends with Mild Bruce and thus was introduced to the group.
They spent a considerable amount of time and money getting ready and then headed out.
Once they reached the castle, they went in the front entrance. Aldwyn tried the trap door but it proved to be locked shut, so he was zapped (for 3 FP and 1 HP) by the "black energy." They had to take the main entrance instead.
But then they realized no one had made lightstones. So they sat down for an hour to make them.
About 30 minutes in, Crogar (who was on guard) spotted a dinner-plate sized spider moving up behind Wyatt. He yelled a warning and ran up and All-Out Attacked it, cutting it in half with his new everything-on-it axe. Otherwise, it went without incident. Hayden sharpened his swords with the special whetstone, and the others just rested.
That done, they sent Gerry down, with Invisibility, Levitation, and Dark Vision for a look. He saw it was unguarded and summoned the group down. Wyatt leaped across and nailed in spikes to string ropes for a walkway. They crossed that without incident.
They forced one of the doors open and then had to bash open two doors into (and out of) the noisy room, creating a lot of noise. Nothing came of that, though. They later found a trail of blood off one of the side passages. They ignored it and moved on, and went down the stairs in the "ogre room," and into the "apetrium." They decided they needed to plan their attack on the draugr. Instead of staying in the apetrium, they headed into an attached room that once was the sleeping area of the ape shaman. They set up and began to plan.
As they did, four reeks dropped from the ceiling - one each onto two of the skeletons, Ulf, and Astrid. Gerry ordered his skeletons to attack the reeks with their axes. Astrid tried to pull hers off of her shoulder, and did, but it stuck to her hand instead. Ulf scraped at his with his small knife, inflicting harmful but mild cuts on the reek. Astrid threw hers down, glove and all, and Aldwyn proceeded to beat it to death with a wooden longsword he carries.
Ulf's helmet was rapidly disintegrating, but he got it off and onto the floor. Hayden stepped up and cut at it . . . and rolled an 18. He slammed his broadsword into the floor and snapped it off near the hilt, breaking it beyond use. The skeletons finished off their reeks and then killed that one.
All the excitement over, the PCs gathered up their gear - and Ulf and a skeleton swapped helmets as Ulf's was badly trashed.
Then then planned their attack. Basically, it was use a scroll of Mystic Mist to cover as much of the room as possible, excluding the sarcophagi, and then get the draugr to come and defeat them while the PCs had the advantage. If that didn't work, they had alternative plans with other ways to get the foe at a disadvantage, including taunting them with Sterick's death to get them to go berserk.
The PCs moved rapidly to the draugr, bypassing everything else along the way except for a brief check into the "chimera room" to ensure nothing was lurking back there.
Once they reached the illusionary wall (detected by Hayden's hands), they had Gerry poke through and cast Purify Air on the smoke beyond. As it reformed, Ulf wanted to look for ways to stop up any holes that pumped in the smoke, but he was disuaded by no one else wanting to join in. The PCs began to down potions, wanting to maximize the time they had their effects, and then readied various spellstones they'd stocked up on.
They reached the draugr tomb at the end of the purple-and-black colored corridor. They saw some of the white-painted sarcophagi, all closed up. So Gerry began to cast Mystic Mist. After less than a minute, though, the tomb lids opened and out climbed the draugr. They formed up quickly into three ranks of 10 backed by 3 "loose" in the back, several yards between the ranks. This was at the order of someone who called out to "form up and attack."
The PCs stood in a four-man wall, with Crogar, Astrid, Aldwyn, and Hernando from left to right. Beyond stood the others. Gerry kept casting, just in case they'd leave them alone for another 9 1/2 minutes to finish the spell. They did not. The threw spears - five each at the two shieldless fighters.
Astrid took four or five spears right away, and staggered back making multiple death checks. Aldwyn, too, was severely wounded by several spears. Ulf sprang into action with Faith Healing and Hayden moved up to the front as more spears came in and hit the two wounded fighters again.
The group formed up a better front rank, and Aldwyn dropped one of his swords and readied his shield. Ulf threw a 3d Sunbolt but it was casually blocked by one of the draugr. Hernando taunted the draugr with Sterick's death, but they clearly didn't believe him, and mocked him in turn. Ulf tried to appeal that "We only want the ancestor of Verrick!" but probably didn't think through how that sounded. He couldn't spot which one was the guy they needed the grave good off of.
The draugr broke ranks and moved back as the second rank stepped through and threw spears, again in two waves. These hit a couple of the PCs but mostly they were blocked or missed as Gerry got Missile Shield off on a few of the defenders. The wounded frantically drank potions. Wyatt calmly stood in the back, breaking spellstone after spellstone to buff with - Bladeturning, Walk on Air, Blur 5, Haste 2, and Shield.
After the second rank threw spears, the draugr rushed up to the PCs with swords and axes. They brawled it out with the PCs. The fight took a couple of real-world hours, but it's easily summed up like this:
Crogar got into it with one draugr and they slogged it out with each other, both fending off each other's attacks. Ulf used his Wand of Paralyzation five or six times, and managed to paralyze one draugr (who then was beaten to death over four-five seconds by Hernando), but mostly couldn't roll well enough to paralyze them. Hayden fought with his golden bone falchion and crippled one draugr and eventually killed him. Astrid threw first her harpoon and then her knife from the back. Wyatt walked around on the air and stabbed at eyes, blinding several of the draugr. Crogar and Aldwyn fought as well, with Aldwyn managing to hurt more of the draugr than Crogar could. The draugr hit the PCs a few times, and critical hits in both directions made for some bad wounds. Ulf healed the PCs with Faith Healing and Gerry started to systematically Great Haste the group. Even blinded, the draugr were very resilient (HT 15+),
The first clash ended with several draugr blinded and moved into the back, most of the draugr having thrown their spears, and eight draugr down - several decapitated, one with a smashed skull, and several just down with crippled limbs and numerous injuries who are either "unconscious" or dead.
The PCs are in much better shape, but have used healing several times and a lot of paut, and Great Haste rapidly winding down. The FP loss from Great Haste is going to tell soon, and it will be difficult to keep it gone.
We had to end it mid-fight because of real-world time concerns. We'll pick up next time with Draugr II.
Notes:
The PCs finally went after the draugr in a big way. They expected Hamilcar and Galen today, but neither could make it due to other concerns. Hamilcar probably had Wizard Court jury duty, and Galen had a sick dryad-in-law in his family to visit. Those two would have made a big difference.
Crogar bought Lucky, so now he's Crogar the Lucky.
Astrid is a guest player. She plays in Aldwyn's own DF game where he lives. His game draws a lot of inspiration from mine but mine ratchets up the difficulty a lot and the margin of error down. So what do you do with a guest who might only have a brief time with the group? Stick her in the back rank for the entire fight. She did her best, though, and very actively sought out things to do and did them.
The PCs made a few tactical errors, by their own description. Putting non-shield carrying fighters in the front rank - especially ones not exceptionally good at parrying - was a bad idea. They knew the draugr had spears, but no one ever gave it enough mind. That didn't kill anyone - although it came very close for both Aldwyn and Astrid - and it cost the PCs a lot of resources to heal them up.
The PCs also made a rookie error of going into a "cleared" room without checking if it stayed cleared. Sadly, it had four reeks in it that I placed there who even knows when, and which I'd marked as waiting dormant there. It could have been a trivial slaughter of the reeks except a) no one looked at the ceiling and b) everyone wants to just scrape oozes off like they're green slime. Almost everyone - Gerry ordered his skeletons to do full-bore attacks regardless of the consequences. Rookie error, for sure. Check the ceiling and check corners and scout before you move in should just a thing by now, but it was forgotten.
Mystic Mist is an interesting spell, but rarely helps in my games. It's so nasty few foes will enter it unless absolutely compelled to, or if they're immune. And it takes so long it's hard to use even in those cases. The PCs have a second scroll of it, which they'll use if the draugr back off, but again, it's 10 minutes to cast that way.
Weather: Moderately cold, rainy.
Characters:
Aldwyn Hale, human knight (278 points)
Astrid Cook, human barbarian (250 points)
Crogar the Lucky, human barbarian (268 points)
Gerald Tarrant, human necromancer (370 points)
5 Skeletons (~35 points)
Hayden the Ebon Page, human knight (307 points)
Hernando Velazquez, human knight (250 points)
Ulf Sigurdson, human cleric (285 points)
Wyatt Sorrell, human swashbuckler (286 points)
The group gathered in Stericksburg, and pooled their rumors and stocked up on magical goods (or took delivery of orders.) Aldwyn brought along Astrid, a scythe-and-harpoon armed and short barbarian warrior who was friends with Mild Bruce and thus was introduced to the group.
They spent a considerable amount of time and money getting ready and then headed out.
Once they reached the castle, they went in the front entrance. Aldwyn tried the trap door but it proved to be locked shut, so he was zapped (for 3 FP and 1 HP) by the "black energy." They had to take the main entrance instead.
But then they realized no one had made lightstones. So they sat down for an hour to make them.
About 30 minutes in, Crogar (who was on guard) spotted a dinner-plate sized spider moving up behind Wyatt. He yelled a warning and ran up and All-Out Attacked it, cutting it in half with his new everything-on-it axe. Otherwise, it went without incident. Hayden sharpened his swords with the special whetstone, and the others just rested.
That done, they sent Gerry down, with Invisibility, Levitation, and Dark Vision for a look. He saw it was unguarded and summoned the group down. Wyatt leaped across and nailed in spikes to string ropes for a walkway. They crossed that without incident.
They forced one of the doors open and then had to bash open two doors into (and out of) the noisy room, creating a lot of noise. Nothing came of that, though. They later found a trail of blood off one of the side passages. They ignored it and moved on, and went down the stairs in the "ogre room," and into the "apetrium." They decided they needed to plan their attack on the draugr. Instead of staying in the apetrium, they headed into an attached room that once was the sleeping area of the ape shaman. They set up and began to plan.
As they did, four reeks dropped from the ceiling - one each onto two of the skeletons, Ulf, and Astrid. Gerry ordered his skeletons to attack the reeks with their axes. Astrid tried to pull hers off of her shoulder, and did, but it stuck to her hand instead. Ulf scraped at his with his small knife, inflicting harmful but mild cuts on the reek. Astrid threw hers down, glove and all, and Aldwyn proceeded to beat it to death with a wooden longsword he carries.
Ulf's helmet was rapidly disintegrating, but he got it off and onto the floor. Hayden stepped up and cut at it . . . and rolled an 18. He slammed his broadsword into the floor and snapped it off near the hilt, breaking it beyond use. The skeletons finished off their reeks and then killed that one.
All the excitement over, the PCs gathered up their gear - and Ulf and a skeleton swapped helmets as Ulf's was badly trashed.
Then then planned their attack. Basically, it was use a scroll of Mystic Mist to cover as much of the room as possible, excluding the sarcophagi, and then get the draugr to come and defeat them while the PCs had the advantage. If that didn't work, they had alternative plans with other ways to get the foe at a disadvantage, including taunting them with Sterick's death to get them to go berserk.
The PCs moved rapidly to the draugr, bypassing everything else along the way except for a brief check into the "chimera room" to ensure nothing was lurking back there.
Once they reached the illusionary wall (detected by Hayden's hands), they had Gerry poke through and cast Purify Air on the smoke beyond. As it reformed, Ulf wanted to look for ways to stop up any holes that pumped in the smoke, but he was disuaded by no one else wanting to join in. The PCs began to down potions, wanting to maximize the time they had their effects, and then readied various spellstones they'd stocked up on.
They reached the draugr tomb at the end of the purple-and-black colored corridor. They saw some of the white-painted sarcophagi, all closed up. So Gerry began to cast Mystic Mist. After less than a minute, though, the tomb lids opened and out climbed the draugr. They formed up quickly into three ranks of 10 backed by 3 "loose" in the back, several yards between the ranks. This was at the order of someone who called out to "form up and attack."
The PCs stood in a four-man wall, with Crogar, Astrid, Aldwyn, and Hernando from left to right. Beyond stood the others. Gerry kept casting, just in case they'd leave them alone for another 9 1/2 minutes to finish the spell. They did not. The threw spears - five each at the two shieldless fighters.
Astrid took four or five spears right away, and staggered back making multiple death checks. Aldwyn, too, was severely wounded by several spears. Ulf sprang into action with Faith Healing and Hayden moved up to the front as more spears came in and hit the two wounded fighters again.
The group formed up a better front rank, and Aldwyn dropped one of his swords and readied his shield. Ulf threw a 3d Sunbolt but it was casually blocked by one of the draugr. Hernando taunted the draugr with Sterick's death, but they clearly didn't believe him, and mocked him in turn. Ulf tried to appeal that "We only want the ancestor of Verrick!" but probably didn't think through how that sounded. He couldn't spot which one was the guy they needed the grave good off of.
The draugr broke ranks and moved back as the second rank stepped through and threw spears, again in two waves. These hit a couple of the PCs but mostly they were blocked or missed as Gerry got Missile Shield off on a few of the defenders. The wounded frantically drank potions. Wyatt calmly stood in the back, breaking spellstone after spellstone to buff with - Bladeturning, Walk on Air, Blur 5, Haste 2, and Shield.
After the second rank threw spears, the draugr rushed up to the PCs with swords and axes. They brawled it out with the PCs. The fight took a couple of real-world hours, but it's easily summed up like this:
Crogar got into it with one draugr and they slogged it out with each other, both fending off each other's attacks. Ulf used his Wand of Paralyzation five or six times, and managed to paralyze one draugr (who then was beaten to death over four-five seconds by Hernando), but mostly couldn't roll well enough to paralyze them. Hayden fought with his golden bone falchion and crippled one draugr and eventually killed him. Astrid threw first her harpoon and then her knife from the back. Wyatt walked around on the air and stabbed at eyes, blinding several of the draugr. Crogar and Aldwyn fought as well, with Aldwyn managing to hurt more of the draugr than Crogar could. The draugr hit the PCs a few times, and critical hits in both directions made for some bad wounds. Ulf healed the PCs with Faith Healing and Gerry started to systematically Great Haste the group. Even blinded, the draugr were very resilient (HT 15+),
The first clash ended with several draugr blinded and moved into the back, most of the draugr having thrown their spears, and eight draugr down - several decapitated, one with a smashed skull, and several just down with crippled limbs and numerous injuries who are either "unconscious" or dead.
The PCs are in much better shape, but have used healing several times and a lot of paut, and Great Haste rapidly winding down. The FP loss from Great Haste is going to tell soon, and it will be difficult to keep it gone.
We had to end it mid-fight because of real-world time concerns. We'll pick up next time with Draugr II.
Notes:
The PCs finally went after the draugr in a big way. They expected Hamilcar and Galen today, but neither could make it due to other concerns. Hamilcar probably had Wizard Court jury duty, and Galen had a sick dryad-in-law in his family to visit. Those two would have made a big difference.
Crogar bought Lucky, so now he's Crogar the Lucky.
Astrid is a guest player. She plays in Aldwyn's own DF game where he lives. His game draws a lot of inspiration from mine but mine ratchets up the difficulty a lot and the margin of error down. So what do you do with a guest who might only have a brief time with the group? Stick her in the back rank for the entire fight. She did her best, though, and very actively sought out things to do and did them.
The PCs made a few tactical errors, by their own description. Putting non-shield carrying fighters in the front rank - especially ones not exceptionally good at parrying - was a bad idea. They knew the draugr had spears, but no one ever gave it enough mind. That didn't kill anyone - although it came very close for both Aldwyn and Astrid - and it cost the PCs a lot of resources to heal them up.
The PCs also made a rookie error of going into a "cleared" room without checking if it stayed cleared. Sadly, it had four reeks in it that I placed there who even knows when, and which I'd marked as waiting dormant there. It could have been a trivial slaughter of the reeks except a) no one looked at the ceiling and b) everyone wants to just scrape oozes off like they're green slime. Almost everyone - Gerry ordered his skeletons to do full-bore attacks regardless of the consequences. Rookie error, for sure. Check the ceiling and check corners and scout before you move in should just a thing by now, but it was forgotten.
Mystic Mist is an interesting spell, but rarely helps in my games. It's so nasty few foes will enter it unless absolutely compelled to, or if they're immune. And it takes so long it's hard to use even in those cases. The PCs have a second scroll of it, which they'll use if the draugr back off, but again, it's 10 minutes to cast that way.
Saturday, December 28, 2019
Who decides what to do? And how?
How does your gaming group make decisions about what to do in a sandbox setting?
How does your group set goals and decide on a course of action?
My Felltower group generally makes its decisions in an ad hoc way, with people interested in voicing an opinion doing so and eventually coming to a consensus. A significant number of the group don't have any particular opinion and will go anyway. In other words, people offer up ideas and if enough other people are enthusiastic or ambivalent about it, it happens. If people are mostly ambivalent or negative about it, it doesn't.
In Gamma Terra a small group of us - and I am one of them - have some definite ideas about what to do. So the group has been going about the decisions made by this small and decisive subset. It's similar but it's more like "this is what we'll do barring persuasive objections" and less like the above "how about we do this, unless someone else has another idea?"
We've toyed - in both games - with the idea of assigning a leader who gets to just decide what the next session's delve/adventure will be. But it generally has not stuck.
The whole Caller/Leader thing was something that D&D seemed to embrace back when I first started to play it. We didn't do that, but we read Examples of Play that had Callers or Leaders. In the beer-and-pretzels games we play now, having one person make a quick and irrevocable decision sometimes seems very attractice. We can just get on with it, instead of debating what to do.
How does your group set goals and decide on a course of action?
My Felltower group generally makes its decisions in an ad hoc way, with people interested in voicing an opinion doing so and eventually coming to a consensus. A significant number of the group don't have any particular opinion and will go anyway. In other words, people offer up ideas and if enough other people are enthusiastic or ambivalent about it, it happens. If people are mostly ambivalent or negative about it, it doesn't.
In Gamma Terra a small group of us - and I am one of them - have some definite ideas about what to do. So the group has been going about the decisions made by this small and decisive subset. It's similar but it's more like "this is what we'll do barring persuasive objections" and less like the above "how about we do this, unless someone else has another idea?"
We've toyed - in both games - with the idea of assigning a leader who gets to just decide what the next session's delve/adventure will be. But it generally has not stuck.
The whole Caller/Leader thing was something that D&D seemed to embrace back when I first started to play it. We didn't do that, but we read Examples of Play that had Callers or Leaders. In the beer-and-pretzels games we play now, having one person make a quick and irrevocable decision sometimes seems very attractice. We can just get on with it, instead of debating what to do.
Friday, December 27, 2019
Six Mile Hexes links
For a variety of reasons, I've been thinking about 6 Mile Hexes. Not that I run a hexcrawl, but still, it's useful metric to keep in mind when thinking about PCs and NPC carving out kingdoms.
I decided to put together some links that I've found useful concerning them.
In Praise of the 6 Mile Hex
How Much Adventure in One 6 Mile Hex?
So Hex Size in Square Miles (about 32 miles)
The AD&D DMG discusses setting up a stronghold by clearing an area, and discussed 20-40 mile hexes (p. 47) and even 200 yard hexes for small-scale mapping (p. 93).
What other links should I add for discussions of the basic structure of a six-mile hex for domains or exploration?
I decided to put together some links that I've found useful concerning them.
In Praise of the 6 Mile Hex
How Much Adventure in One 6 Mile Hex?
So Hex Size in Square Miles (about 32 miles)
The AD&D DMG discusses setting up a stronghold by clearing an area, and discussed 20-40 mile hexes (p. 47) and even 200 yard hexes for small-scale mapping (p. 93).
What other links should I add for discussions of the basic structure of a six-mile hex for domains or exploration?
Thursday, December 26, 2019
Boxing Day - A look back at Boxing
While the actual meaning of Boxing day has less to do with Boxing than I think it should, that's no reason not to blog about Boxing.
Re-reading the Boxing style - and the box "The Sweet Science" from GURPS Martial Arts, p. 152-153, what would I change?
Writeup: I think the writeup is solid. Nothing really leaps out at me as something that needs changing. It's still accurate and engagingly written. The tough part is the Art, Sport, combat skill split - Boxing really does need both Boxing Sport and Boxing, but it's not like you learn one without the other. I've yet to meet a proper boxing trainer who will teach you to fight without requiring hard contact in both directions. Stay on your toes and move quickly or the focus mitt will find its way past your guard and onto your face.
It would have been nice to write it in light of the fighter between Mayweather and McGregor (highlighting expert specialist vs. expert generalist in a specialist contest) and the growth of bare-knuckle fighting again.
Additions: If I had to add anything, I'd add Targeted Attack (Boxing Punch/Vitals) for those liver-hunting left hookers that I know. I'd probably add a box somewhere - for fighters in general - with some disadvantages to reflect TBI (traumatic brain injury) and the cumulative effect of head blows on personality. It's not just lost IQ and lowered Appearance.
Removals: Although I very much like the Uppercut technique (also useful for shovel hooks!) if I had to cut something I'd cut that entirely and cut it from Boxing. It's not something that necessarily needs its own rules. It doesn't need cutting, but it could be cut and leave the style usefully intact.
Overall, I think we did a good job on all three versions of Boxing - modern, Ancient Greek, and Bare-Knuckle.
Re-reading the Boxing style - and the box "The Sweet Science" from GURPS Martial Arts, p. 152-153, what would I change?
Writeup: I think the writeup is solid. Nothing really leaps out at me as something that needs changing. It's still accurate and engagingly written. The tough part is the Art, Sport, combat skill split - Boxing really does need both Boxing Sport and Boxing, but it's not like you learn one without the other. I've yet to meet a proper boxing trainer who will teach you to fight without requiring hard contact in both directions. Stay on your toes and move quickly or the focus mitt will find its way past your guard and onto your face.
It would have been nice to write it in light of the fighter between Mayweather and McGregor (highlighting expert specialist vs. expert generalist in a specialist contest) and the growth of bare-knuckle fighting again.
Additions: If I had to add anything, I'd add Targeted Attack (Boxing Punch/Vitals) for those liver-hunting left hookers that I know. I'd probably add a box somewhere - for fighters in general - with some disadvantages to reflect TBI (traumatic brain injury) and the cumulative effect of head blows on personality. It's not just lost IQ and lowered Appearance.
Removals: Although I very much like the Uppercut technique (also useful for shovel hooks!) if I had to cut something I'd cut that entirely and cut it from Boxing. It's not something that necessarily needs its own rules. It doesn't need cutting, but it could be cut and leave the style usefully intact.
Overall, I think we did a good job on all three versions of Boxing - modern, Ancient Greek, and Bare-Knuckle.
Wednesday, December 25, 2019
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